The Journal
by MurdocsAngel
Summary: In order to get some ammunition for a prank war, Sheppard sneaks into McKay’s quarters…and finds something interesting. McWeir
1. Default Chapter

**Disclaimer:**I do not own Stargate Atlantis.

**Summary:** In order to get some ammunition for a prank war, Sheppard sneaks into McKay's quarters…and finds something interesting. McWeir

**Archive:** Sure!  
**Rating: **PG-13 to be on the safe side  
**Spoilers: **None, really.  
**Pairing: **McWeir

**A/N:** Thanks so much to Jenny, for patiently listening to my ramblings…To everyone else…this one's a little…strange. So bear with me…

John cursed as he tripped over something in the darkened room. Thank God McKay was in his lab and not in his quarters, or he'd have some explaining to do. Rubbing his knee where he'd landed, he stood up again and switched on his flashlight. McKay was an incredibly messy individual. Clothes and other things littered the floor, bed and desk. John shook his head and then hoisted the bag that held his tools to his shoulder.

Being more careful this time, he walked over to the desk and sat down before pulling out a couple of things from his bag. A slow grin spread across his face. McKay would never know what hit him.

Perhaps it was childish of him, to retaliate in this manner…but…well the astrophysicist deserved it. Really, he did. If he thought he could retain the upper hand in an all out prank war with Master Shep, then he had another think coming.

He had to work quickly though, or he'd be found out…and that was unacceptable. So, he began rummaging through McKay's stuff. He didn't want anything too private…because that would be in violation of the unspoken laws of the Prank War. However, something just juicy enough to embarrass the man without offending him was perfectly fine.

McKay had let slip on a recent mission that he kept a journal. And since all's fair in love and war…John was totally going to use McKay's words against him. He grinned when he found what he was looking for, in plain sight. Most people wouldn't think to hide their things like that…but McKay wasn't most people.

He opened the leather bound book and began idly rifling through pages. From the dates, it looked as though he'd written a little bit when he was in college…and then just stopped until Antarctica. Strange. He flipped back to the front of the diary and raised an eyebrow as a piece of paper fluttered out. Picking it up, he perused the few lines on it.

_Ode to Eliza _

Silently I watch  
Looking from a far  
Sweet lady whose face  
Nothing could mar

Eyes full of knowledge  
Brimming with wonder  
You've stolen my heart  
Taken as your plunder

Eliza you are devine  
Though you'll ne'er be mine.

Signed

Anonymous

John stared at the words for several precious minutes before a slow grin pasted itself onto his face. The poem was rather cheesy, and if McKay had written it, it was absolutely perfect for what he was planning. Still grinning, he quickly pulled out a small camera and took photos of all the journal entries, then shoved the journal back to its former position before rising and leaving the room quickly.

Back in the relative safety of his own quarters, John hooked the camera up to a laptop he'd snitched under the pretense that he was going to do some reports and then extracted the journal entries and settled back to do some reading.

_What will the world be coming to if I just decide not to go through with this? I mean, it's not like this class is _actually_ needed. Damn, if I had just registered earlier! Well, it's not like I could have. I was in the hospital because of an allergic reaction. They could have left one of the language classes open, couldn't they? I mean, yeah, I'm already taking Russian and Latin--for obvious reasons--but one more couldn't hurt? _

So, the poem could very likely be McKay's. In fact, it probably was. Still…John just couldn't resist reading a little more.

_Well, it's time for me to go. I could be late, make a statment and all that, but I'd rather make the statement that I'm reliable. Even doing something I hate. _

_God, this class is going to be boring. All ready I'm ready to snooze and it's only been the first five minutes! Writing poetry. What good can _that_ do the world? I mean, come on. What am I going to do? Go up to Stephen Hawking and say "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, it is your keyboard?" Hardly. _

_Oh, better go for now...at least until I've got all the handouts. People are starting to stare at me. Probably just jealous because I've found a way to escape the monotony while they're stuck listening to the professor. _

_Okay, the class isn't _all_ bad. But now we've got to sit here and write some kind of crappy 'flow-of-consciousness' thing. Well, if I wrote whatever popped into my head, I don't think the professor would like it very much. Oh, and now he's writing on the board, guess my time's up. Ha, guess he realizes that most of this class doesn't have a consciousness, much less a flow to it. _

_Ah! Lunch! My favorite time of the day...besides dinner. And breakfast. And elevensies. Those Hobbits sure knew what they were about. Eating is a wondrous thing. What was I going to say? Oh yeah! We got put into groups of four--can you believe it? Like we're a bunch of high school kids again. _

_Anyway, I've been paired with two guys who are so high they laugh at every other word said, and this young woman who seems to really enjoy the class. I wasn't paying much attention, but I'm assuming we have to write stuff and then critique each others as well as our own. _

_Critique. Again, I really don't see the point of this class. Who cares if some rhyme scheme is perfect? Or if the personification of an owl makes an impact on the feelings of a flower? Or whatever. I certainly don't. I'd much rather discuss the relationship of protons and electrons in the atomic mass. _

_Oh crap. I'm late. _

_I am so glad I live on campus, because it means I don't have to listen to Mum and Dad complaining about how I'll never amount to anything. What do they know anyway? I make an atomic bomb in the sixth grade, and instead of supporting my obvious genius, they put me in some kind of school for deranged boys. _

_Right, it wasn't really for deranged boys, but most of the boys there were deranged. All I wanted to do was win the science fair. I mean, really. There's no comparison. At all. _

_What was my point? Well, Mum called today. Don't know how she got my number. Well, actually I do. It's in the directory. Anyway, she's begging me to come home, because I'd be better off taking after my dad's business. Greeting Cards. She wants me to run a greeting card business. Can you believe that? I've got a really high IQ and she wants me to waste my intelligence on greeting cards! _

_Gotta go again...working on the stupid writing assignment for Poetry. We've got to write four couplets. Oh well, physics tomorrow!_

A pounding at his door made John jump, and he quickly closed the files, opening up the ones his reports were in before calling out, "Who's there?"

"Lieutenant Ford, sir," came the response, "along with Sgts Markham and Bates. We're here for the game?" The last was definitely a question, and John had to grin.

"Come on in, I could use a break from these reports." In truth, he was cursing his luck. McKay had a very compelling writing style…even if his grammar and spelling were a little off.

tbc….


	2. 2

Several days full of missions and other annoying distractions passed before John was finally able to get back to reading the journal entries. He made sure his door was locked and that he had cleared his schedule of anything before settling back on his bed and opening the files to scan for the next installment.

_Okay, I am officially disappointed in this school. First, they require you to take courses that have nothing to do with anything important, and then, for the courses that might actually do you some good, they hire incompetent fools to teach it. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have insulted him, but really. We aren't third graders. We all know what atoms are._

_I think I'm going to put in an official complaint. No, I know I'm going to put in an official complaint. Maybe I can get transferred to Dr. Horton's class instead. He's not the best out there, but I respect the papers he's done. And anyone has to be better than Mister Garden. Garden. What kind of name is that? How can anyone take someone with a last name like that seriously_

Rolling his eyes, John very quickly skimmed down the page, then several more before the rant finally ended. Leave it to McKay…

_No homework from the physics class from hell. Not that it would have bothered me, I could have breezed through it no problem. Maybe it's because I'm going to an American college. I knew I should have held out for Paris. Oh well. Gotta go…next class is technical writing. Not really interesting, but definitely necessary._

_You know what they told me? The dean and the councilors? They said that these classes were undergraduate level, and so yes, if I were that intelligent I would probably be bored with them. (I had told them all about my IQ you see…and they already know about some of my…experiments) However, apparently I should "see that others are not so fortunate as I and need to work at a slower pace. Once classes get started, it should pick up a little better."_

_So, I'm supposed to sit here and suffer while people who are dumb get to have every one of their needs catered to? That's unacceptable. But I can't get a transfer. I know, because I've already checked into it. And I still haven't done those couplets._

_I've got that poetry class again tomorrow. Three days a week, can you believe it? So anyway I guess I'd better do that now._

_Her name is Eliza. The girl in the group I was assigned to for this totally pointless class. I don't usually care about things like that—girls, in my opinion, are just new ways to get off track. And I certainly don't need that right now. To get off track. Where was I again? Right. I was going to say that her name is Eliza. A pretty blond little thing. I don't like blonds either. They're usually ditzy and totally unreliable. But she's not. Eliza. I mean…even though she isn't a scientist or even very scientifically inclined…she's incredibly intelligent._

_She has this thing about her. She's so calm. And nice. She's very nice. Even to the two stoners. She brings them in to the discussion. They actually write good poetry, if I go by what the professor says is any indication of the fact. She actually speaks to me like I'm important. A friend._

_Eliza. It's so…British sounding. But she's not. British. She's totally American. From the deep south apparently. She's got a voice coach who's teaching her to modulate her voice so that honeyed accent doesn't show through as much as she said it did when she was younger._

_She doesn't know what she wants to be. Has no clue what she's majoring in, she just wants to do something that can help people. She also thinks my name is James. Okay, so it wasn't the complete truth…but Rodney is such an awkward sounding name. James is…cool. You know, like James Bond. James Kirk. It's my middle name. Or it would have been had I named myself. Of course, then my first name would have been Ivan. Ivan James. Or maybe the other way around. James Ivan. I don't actually have a middle name, so making one up isn't totally bad. Is it?_

_She's got green eyes. I've never been an eye person. But hers are green. I know, because I had to spend most of the class staring into them. It was for an assignment, but I didn't mind, not really. We then had to describe them. Without saying "they're green and very shiny, especially when she smiles just like that." In fact, we couldn't use any other facial features in the description._

_She's much better at this than I am. For instance, I wrote "Pools of deep moss." Seriously, that's all I could think of. She wrote "The color of the gulf when the sun hits it just right, a sort of turquoise but not quite as bright." Wow. I have no clue what that means, but it was beautiful. It's getting late and I have to go through this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson and point out all the metaphors and then say what they're metaphor's for. Joy for me._

Now this was 'gold'. A slow grin formed on John's face as he set the journal aside for another time, because once more the younger Rodney had decided to go on a rambling rant about metaphors of all things. Still, he now knew something about who that poem was written for. And that Rodney was rather poetic, even if he pretended like he wasn't.


End file.
